A Cyber security expert and Managing Director of CyberDome Nigeria, Chioma Iwuagwu, has called on Nigerian girl-child, especially in the North not to be discouraged by the recent activities of the bandits in the region.
Speaking at a press conference Wednesday in Abuja to commemorate this year’s International Women’s Day, Iwuagwu said Nigeria has come to a stage where older women folk begin to teach every woman and girl child the need to demonstrate competence in whatever they do.
On the recent kidnap of some Secondary Schools children in the North, the CyberDome Nigeria boss said the country has responsibility to prepare young ones, including girl-child to take up leadership role in the near future.
She said: “Unfortunately, we have gotten to a point in our country where a girl-child education is a main target. A couple of weeks ago the young boys also faced the challenge. The question here is what narrative, what picture and messages are we trying to pass across? All we can say is security is a collective and holistic thing, so, beside the government every unit in the society have to take ownership.
“It is a call to action for people in leadership so that the ugly trend we have witnessed in the past; from unequality, to marginalisation and to victimisation we have to really stand up against and speak against.”
Iwuagwu called on Nigerian leaders at all levels to seriously invest in training and building up young ones with senses of responsibility, and do everything possible to reverse some of unfortunate trends against girl-child.
“We must share our experiences with them and show them the challenges ahead. We must also make it deliberate to equip them with the right skills to prepare them for the challenges ahead, not a kind of gender inferiority complex, so that they can stand shoulder to shoulder with their men contemporaries and also their contemporary all over.
“My advice to the girl-child is not to be afraid or discourage. These are little challenges for now but at the end of the day we are going to look back and be proud that we actually rose to the challenge and beat our fears and make something out of it.
“The idea is to make you feel as a girl-child your place is not in the classroom, your place is not in the boardroom, you just have to remain in the kitchen. We are not trying to prove or come up with superiority complex. We are only trying to say let’s support the girl-child like our contemporaries all over, let show her that being a woman or being a girl is good. Beside being domesticated you can also pursue your passion and live up to your potentials.
“My advice for the girls who are in the Northern part of the country is to brace up with courage to overcome the challenges of today. Just like Malala of Pakistan, who is today a global role model.
“We should also be given the platform to prove ourselves because a couple of women going by what the society made us to be only when you engage them you will see what they really have inside.
She then appealed to stakeholders and governments, opinion leaders to give girl-child a chance by providing the platform and I think the country will be a better it.
Iwuagwu also counselled Parents to show example of what they want the girl child to be.
According to her “a girl child is very critical to any society in the world. We are caretakers, we are change makers. If you want something done give it to a lady because she is going to give you everything she has,” she concluded.
